Climate Change Impact More Extensive than Thought
Boy....Are these stories becoming more outrageous, now that they know the people aren't buying their Bs...Have you also noticed....they've nonchalantly eased out of the phrase global warming........to Climate Change????
By Volker Mrasek
Global climate change is happening faster than previously believed and its impact is worse than expected, information from an as-yet unpublished draft of the long-awaited second part of a United Nations report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE reveals. No region of the planet will be spared and some will be hit especially hard.
Is the world's weather already out of control? Is the pollution of the past decades having an impact on the present? That's exactly what the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fears: Human influences over the last 30 years "have had a recognizable effect on many physical and biological systems," write the authors of the as yet unreleased second part of the 2007 global climate change report.
According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is convinced global warming is already making the world sweat. At least that's the gist of the "Summary for Policymakers" from the group made up of hundreds of scientists.
The second part of the report is to be presented in April in Brussels after final discussions with government representatives from around the globe. The meta-study is certain to have a major political impact on the ongoing debate about climate change.
Mounting evidence: Climate change is happening now
The main conclusion of the report is that climate change is already having a profound effect on all the continents and on many of the Earth's ecosystems. The draft presents a long list of evidence:
Glacial lakes are increasing in both size and number, potentially leading to deadly floods
Permafrost in mountainous regions and at high latitudes is warming increasing the danger of land slides.
As the temperature of rivers and lakes rises, their thermal stratification and water quality is changing.
River currents, affected by melting glaciers and ice, are speeding up during the spring.
Springtime is starting earlier, causing plants to bloom earlier and changing the migrations of birds.
Many plants and animals are expanding their habitats into mountainous regions and higher latitudes that are becoming milder.
The authors of the report have sifted through some 30,000 data sets from more than 70 international studies documenting changes to water circulation, to cryospares (ice zones), as well as to flora and fauna over a period of at least 20 years.
According to the IPCC, "more than 85 percent" of the data show "changes in a direction that would be expected as a reaction to warming." In other words: Researchers found evidence of environmental changes due to the greenhouse effect caused by mankind in nearly 9 out of 10 cases surveyed.
The researchers consider it "very unlikely" that the changes observed could be naturally occurring phenomena. They argue that the patterns of regional climate warming and environmental changes match up well with each other. And a similar consistency exists between the scientists' observations and what climate models have predicted would happen as temperatures rise.
Nature under threat
The UN experts go beyond the current situation. They also explore how populated regions and ecosystems will develop in the future as the world becomes warmer.
Many natural resources are likely to fall victim to climate change according to the IPCC draft report:
Some 20 to 30 percent of all species face a "high risk of extinction" should average global temperatures rise another 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius from their 1990 levels. That could happen by 2050, the report warns.
Coral reefs are "likely to undergo strong declines."
Salt marshes and mangrove forests could disappear as sea levels rise.
Tropical rainforests will be replaced by savanna in those regions where groundwater decreases.
Migratory birds and mammals will suffer as vegetation zones in the Arctic shift.
The IPCC expects the following world regions to suffer the most due to climate change:
The Arctic due to the greatest relative warming
Small island states in the Pacific as sea levels rise
Africa south of the Sahel zone due to drought
Densely populated river deltas in Asia amid flooding
This list alone makes abundantly clear that mankind will not escape these changes unscathed.(You would think the wacko environmentalist would be happy about this???)
Heat-related deaths, floods, drought, storms.
more of THE WORLD IS ENDING article at....
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...469608,00.html
Last edited by stephanie; 03-03-2007 at 03:12 AM.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."
Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
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